


Before They Were Puppies

by Tipsy_Kitty



Series: Puppy Verse [15]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M, Past Abuse, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 09:41:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsy_Kitty/pseuds/Tipsy_Kitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared’s last meeting as the leader of the Students for Prison Reform.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before They Were Puppies

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Not much happens here, but it's part of the PET verse, which is full of non-con and violence and other bad stuff. Also mentions past sexual assault of an OFC.

Smoke hung in a thick haze around their heads; the noisy bar was filled to capacity with college students letting off steam the week before finals. The jukebox had been fed a steady diet of bills to continue playing the fastest, loudest music in the system.

At the large round booth in the corner, Jared was holding court like one of King Arthur’s knights, eyes gleaming with plans, sweat from the heat of the bar curling the hair at the base of his neck. He was in his element, a lightning rod to rally the troops—

Jensen winced a little. Apparently too much Zinfandel brought out the clichés that two years of J-school should have stamped out.

He didn’t have his notebook tonight though. He had finished his article about SPaR weeks ago, but somehow couldn’t stop coming around.

“So the sentences keep getting longer and longer, and there’s no place to keep everyone. And most people don’t care because they still don’t realize how easy it is for ‘good, upstanding citizens’ to end up on the other side of the bars.”

Jensen had heard all this before; glancing around the table he could see that most of them had. Still, it was hard to stop Jared once he got started, and nobody really wanted to. Listening to him speak was kind of hypnotic.

Jared took a long pull on his glass of ale. His eyes met Jensen’s over the glass. Jensen felt a surprising flash of heat roll through his body as he held Jared’s gaze.

“So, we want y’all to know that tomorrow’s demonstration is completely voluntary,” Cindy said as Jared signaled for the check. “We’ll completely understand if you don’t want to show up.”

“Why wouldn’t we show up?” asked Jordan, one of the newest members of the group.

“The governor’s been trying to enforce some archaic laws about the right to assembly,” Cindy explained, “so y’all should know there’s a very good possibility some of us could get arrested.”

“Arrested for a peaceful demonstration?” Jensen asked doubtfully, wondering if they were being a bit paranoid.

“I know,” Jared said, looking steadily at Jensen. “It sounds paranoid. But we just want everyone to be safe.”

The group broke up shortly after with plans to convene downtown the next day. Some headed off to Pete’s Pool Hall while others decided to make it an early night.

Sleep sounded good to Jensen, but he wasn’t quite ready to leave. He leaned his head against the back of the booth and closed his eyes.

Jared was settling up, and he pinched Jensen’s elbow to get his attention. “Y’okay? You driving?”

“Nah,” Jensen mumbled. “M’only three blocks away.”

Jared relaxed at that, tipped his own head back against the booth.

“I meant it,” Jared said after a couple of minutes had passed. “Tomorrow…I have a bad feeling.”

Jensen didn’t really believe in bad feelings or intuition. When he had decided at 15 that he no longer believed in God, he thought he’d forfeited the right to believe in any kind of luck, good or bad. But Jared sounded very serious, so he paid attention.

“That guy Jordan? And his friend? They’re new, and I’m worried...”

“You think they might be plants,” Jensen said.

“Does that sound crazy?”

Jensen sighed. “Not really.” After some of the things he'd learned recently, it was disturbingly easy to imagine that the state would send someone to infiltrate SPaR and cause problems. 

“I kind of wanted to cancel tomorrow’s protest until I could get more intel, but it’s like a runaway train at this point. I don’t have much control.”

“What could they do?” Jensen asked, but his mind was already supplying the information.

_They would be peacefully assembled, passing out pamphlets to inform passersby about some of the things that had been happening in the guise of justice. And then one of the demonstrators would throw a punch, or launch a rock at somebody’s head, unprovoked, and all hell would break loose._

“Hey Jared?”

“Hmmm.” Jared poured the dregs of the last pitcher into his glass.

“I…don’t want to upset you but…” he stopped, not sure if he should continue. But the burning curiosity that had steered him towards becoming a reporter, even with the shit pay and shittier job prospects, reared up again.

“But?”

“But I can turn up a lot of stuff when I say I’m a reporter.”

Jared tensed but said nothing.

“I’m just, and I promise this will never see print, and you don’t have to say a thing if you don’t want, but…how’d you end up fighting for prisoner rights after…”

Jared drummed his fingers on the table top. “After what happened to my sister?”

Jared sounded bitter and Jensen kind of hated himself for asking the question. He nodded anyway.

“So the thing is,” Jared began and then trailed off. Jensen felt like a prick, even though Jared was under no obligation to tell him anything, but goddamn, his curiosity burned. If anybody had hurt his sister the way Jared’s had been hurt, he would have happily gutted them. He couldn’t reconcile that feeling with Jared’s passion for prison reform.

“So the thing is,” Jared repeated, tracing circles of condensation on the scarred wooden table top. “Sometimes when people are ra—when people are hurt, they get kind of lost, after.” He trailed off again. “And they just want to feel better.”

And then Jensen understood.

“But maybe the state doesn’t care,” Jared continued. “Maybe they just see a teenage girl who’s ‘out of control’ and they find drugs in her car and decide she needs to be taught a lesson.”

Jensen’s hand slid along the table to grip Jared’s. Jared squeezed back.

“So, yeah, I know there’s people in prison who deserve to be there. And then there’s Julia, who was barely hanging on after, after…and she got a crazy stiff penalty when they found an eighth of pot in her car.”

They don’t say anything for a long time, and finally Jensen asked, “How is she now?”

Jared exhaled. “Free. Safe as anyone is. Trying to scrape her life back together.”

“Jared…”

“You know, that program I was talking about? Where they sell off “pretty” people to be pets for rich assholes?”

Jensen nodded, though it still kind of sounded like some insane futuristic porn. He’d heard of the project, Prisoners Eligible for…something, but it had sounded so innocuous, like a GED class or some sort of religious group. That it could be a front for state-sanctioned sexual slavery was mind-boggling.

“That program was already in place when Julia was arrested, and it could have been her, Jensen, even after _everything_ , but it was still…” his eyes unfocused and he lost his thread.

“In its infancy.”

“Yeah. Guess it hadn’t landed here yet.”

They’re still holding hands, but Jensen wished it wasn’t because of his stupid, intrusive questions.

Jared turned to look at Jensen then, his eyes grey in the soft lighting of the bar.

“Maybe?” Jared asked.

Jensen raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe after tomorrow goes okay, we could get dinner or something?” Jared sounded shy and uncertain for the first time since they had met. Jensen felt something in his chest loosen, soar like an unmanned kite aloft in the wind.

“That sounds good, Jared. Really, really good.”

They exchanged small, hopeful smiles and then it was time to part ways for the evening.

They were both at the protest the next day, but the crowd was huge, and they didn’t really get a chance to talk. And then everything went sideways when Jordan started a scuffle with a heckler that led to tear-gas and night sticks and screaming and ended with dozens injured and a police officer knocked unconscious in the melee.

They wouldn't lay eyes on each other again for more than a year. Not until Mark was dragging Jensen on a leash to Jeff’s newly acquired breeding bench.


End file.
